The Young Lady Finishes Her Meal
I was in a state of utter disarray.
I had just finished my usual morning sword training and was heading back into the Count's estate for lunch when it happened.
A remarkably ornate and all-too-familiar carriage was rolling toward the Zernias Count Estate.
When I first laid eyes on the scene, I couldn't believe it.
Sure, I had written to say I likely wouldn't be able to visit her. But according to the butler, my letter wouldn't have arrived until this morning at the earliest.
There was simply no way that Lady Rebecca would have set out for the Count's estate the moment she read my letter.
"Hello?"
"···."
And yet, I was clearly wrong about that.
Just look at Rebecca, scowling right in front of me.
"······Whatever brings you here, my lady?"
"You told me to come, didn't you?"
"···."
She replied in a tone that suggested she had absolutely no idea she'd done anything wrong.
When someone declares themselves that boldly, even I found myself at a loss for words.
As far as I knew, proper noble etiquette was to exchange letters, settle on a date, then pay a visit—no matter how urgently one requested a meeting. But apparently, such formalities were entirely unnecessary for our thoughtless young lady.
All I could manage was a sigh.
"······Have you had lunch yet?"
"No, I've only eaten breakfast."
"Then I'll inform the staff of your arrival. Please wait just a moment."
And when the news spread that Lady Rebecca had come to the Count's estate—well, it goes without saying that the peaceful Zernias Count Estate was turned upside down by the sudden arrival of a guest.
"Is the food to your liking?"
"Yes, it's quite good."
Fortunately, the hastily prepared lunch seemed to suit Rebecca's palate.
The young lady was secretly rather particular about such things, and had the food displeased her, she would no doubt have spared no mercy in her critique.
Whew—
From every corner of the room came the sound of servants exhaling in relief.
They had all been thoroughly startled, after all. When the only daughter of the Duke of Valencia—and the young master's fiancée, no less—arrives out of the blue, who wouldn't be shocked?
And yet the servants of the Count's estate had managed to prepare everything to the satisfaction of even the discerning Rebecca, and for that, I was truly grateful.
I made a mental note to have a word with Father about a bonus on top of their wages once this affair was over, and then turned to speak to Rebecca as she ate.
"······So. What exactly is the reason for this sudden visit?"
"You told me to come in your letter, didn't you?"
Still using my letter as her excuse.
But that wasn't quite what I meant to ask.
"What I mean is—my letter only reached you this morning. I'm asking why you came the very moment you read it."
Why had she come so quickly?
When I wrote the letter, I had expected Rebecca to merely send a reply and never show up at all—or if she did come, to arrive only after some time had passed.
I was simply curious why, far from taking her time, she had set out the instant the letter reached her hands.
"······Do you not want me here?"
But her answer was the last thing I expected.
I'd thought I'd get a response about her reasons for coming, even if not a detailed one. I never imagined she would shoot back with a wounded look on her face.
"······You know perfectly well that is not what I meant."
"Then why are you so curious about why I came?"
"Simply because I'm curious."
"······Curious, you say?"
"Yes. We only just saw each other yesterday, didn't we? I merely wondered why you'd come all this way so quickly when you'd already seen me just yesterday."
"······My mother..."
This time, Rebecca trailed off, bringing up her mother.
Her mother? If we were talking about Rebecca's mother, that would be the Duchess of Valencia.
What on earth did the Duchess have to do with anything?
"Mother told me to prepare for the Imperial Banquet here."
"······The Imperial Banquet... preparations, here?"
"Yes."
"···."
Twice in a single day, I found myself speechless.
If the phrase "so many things to say, yet unable to say any of them" wasn't coined for moments like this, then when?
To be fair, the Imperial Banquet really was an extraordinarily important event.
Every noble of the Empire was expected to attend, and it was held just once a year barring special circumstances.
Most noble daughters made their debutante at the Imperial Banquet—and the same held true for Rebecca, the sole daughter of the Valencia Ducal Family.
······But why would the young lady prepare for the Imperial Banquet here?
Why in the world would she prepare for that all-important debutante at her fiancé's family estate rather than at the Valencia Ducal Mansion? I couldn't begin to fathom what the Duchess was thinking.
"Mother said that since you and I are obviously going to be partners anyway, we might as well practice together."
"······Practice, you mean..."
"Dancing. Surely you're not telling me you don't know that everyone dances with their partner on the night of the banquet?"
Rebecca looked at me as if I were hopeless, her expression the very picture of pity.
"I am well aware of that much."
I had at least that much common sense.
The Crown Prince Holds the Sword, the original novel, had mentioned the Imperial Banquet plenty of times, and in romance-fantasy novels, characters dancing with their partners at an imperial ball was a common trope to begin with.
If anything, not knowing would have been the strange part.
"Still..." And yet, the reason I couldn't fully understand was this:
"······Still, what?"
"Aligning our steps should take two days at the absolute most, and the Imperial Banquet is still a full week away. So why have you come already?"
Even accounting for the banquet, Rebecca had arrived far too early.
Over the past three years, swordsmanship hadn't been the only thing I'd learned.
The etiquette of a noble, the bearing of a noble, the various banquets and events of high society.
I had studied everything required to live as a nobleman—and naturally, that had included the dances performed at banquets.
If even I knew how to dance, there was no possible way Rebecca, a daughter of a ducal house, would not.
And if both partners already knew the dance, it stood to reason that matching their steps wouldn't take long.
Since they were both well-versed in it, a single run-through or two before the real thing should have sufficed.
So why on earth had the young lady come now, a whole week before the Imperial Banquet?
"That's..."
Rebecca's voice faltered.
As if the reason were too embarrassing to admit. As if she couldn't bring herself to say it out loud.
Watching her face slowly flush red, I quietly parted my lips.
"Could it be you missed me that much?"
"······Pardon?"
I hadn't meant anything by it.
I was simply tired of watching the young lady sit there in silence at my question—and seeing the color creeping into her cheeks, I was suddenly struck by the urge to tease her. That was all.
It was a careless remark, carrying nothing more than that.
"Isn't it strange? The young lady who despised me so thoroughly, dropping everything to come the moment she received my letter."
"···."
"Did you truly wish to see me?"
"······And what if I did?"
"...I'm sorry—what?"
For a moment, I doubted my own ears.
The Rebecca Valencia I knew was not the sort of person to say such a thing.
She was not the kind to blush with embarrassment, look the other person dead in the eye, and say her piece anyway.
And yet.
"······What are you going to do if I say I came because I wanted to see you?"
As always, my hearing and my eyesight were perfectly fine.
Ba-dump— ba-dump—
Whether it was Rebecca's heartbeat or my own—or perhaps some nameless heartbeat belonging to no one—something was echoing softly through the dining hall.
"...Pardon?"
Watching her fiancé wear the dumbfounded expression of a man who couldn't possibly have heard her right.
"······What are you going to do if I say I came because I wanted to see you?"
Her heart was pounding.
······I said it out loud.
Her heart was racing at the realization that she had spoken a thought she had only ever kept locked inside.
It was true that she had come to the Zernias Count Estate to prepare for the Imperial Banquet.
After all, her mother had read Albert's letter and suggested she might as well go to the Count's estate.
But that had been merely a suggestion—why not give it a try?—not an order that she must.
And yet she had followed her mother's advice because...
For some reason, she had found herself wanting to see her fiancé's face again—the one she'd seen only yesterday.
She had departed for the Count's estate the very day the letter arrived, when by any reasonable timeline she could have left three days later, because...
It occurred to her that if they were bound to meet anyway, better to meet sooner rather than later.
That was why.
She couldn't explain why she was having these thoughts.
Why she wanted to see her fiancé sooner rather than later, why she yearned to lay eyes on that infuriating face a moment earlier than necessary.
She didn't know why her head was so full of thoughts like these.
But in the end, she felt she had made the right choice.
Because at her brazen challenge—so what if I came because I wanted to see you?—
"···."
Her fiancé was turning red, completely at a loss for what to do.
It had been so long.
Seeing Albert wear an expression like that.
The last time she'd seen it was in that dream, where she had kissed her fiancé.
She couldn't even guess how long it had been since she'd seen it in reality.
After her remark, the two of them continued their meal in silence, and Rebecca was forced to notice something strange.
The food before her seemed far sweeter than it had a moment ago.
A dish that had tasted perfectly ordinary until just now—sweet, as if someone had dumped an entire sack of sugar into it.
Though she had no idea why the food had so suddenly turned sweet,
Rebecca finished her first meal at the Zernias Count Estate in high spirits.